


Not-So-Pitch-Perfect

by thefavourite



Category: Dead Poets Society (1989)
Genre: Acapella, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, And they sing, F/F, M/M, Pitch Perfect AU, Singing, Social Media AU, Stoning, THIS IS NOT COMPLETED, because I said so, but only partially, cameron is basically the antagonist, charlie is non-binary, ginny and chris are the intimidating upperclassmen lesbian musical duo, keating is like their cool musical mentor, meeks and pitts are tone deaf but they beatbox like hell, sort of??, the one where they’re all stoners, todd is the lead singer of the group but charlie is the bossy mom friend we all know he is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-09
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:14:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23555143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefavourite/pseuds/thefavourite
Summary: In Charlie’s defense, it wasn’t their fault that Welton University spontaneously decided to restart its a-capella “chapter” when they and their friends were freshman. It also wasn’t their fault that Chris Noel invited them and Knox Overstreet to audition. Surely, it couldn’t have been them to blame when the nineteen year-old’s other pieces agreed to break into one of the most “confined rooms” on campus, causing the group to fall under fire with the school’s “guardian seniors”, who just so happened to be Chris and Ginny, presenting them with a “punishment” of participating in the chapter’s annual singing tournament. And the absolute last thing that could have been “their fault” was Todd Anderson’s angelic singing voice.
Relationships: Charlie Dalton/Knox Overstreet, Ginny Danbury/Chris Noel, Steven Meeks/Gerard Pitts, Todd Anderson/Neil Perry
Kudos: 15





	Not-So-Pitch-Perfect

“Well, excuse me for asking this,” Neil Perry spoke in this sort of abrupt tone as he approached his close pal, hands shoved in his pea coat pockets. “But dear god, Charlie — what the fuck is that?” 

“Oh, THIS little thing?” if anyone could somehow “speak in a smirking voice”, it was Charlie Dalton. “It’s a pitch pipe.”  
“No offense, Nuwanda,” Todd lightly spoke as he teetered his weight around on the balls of his feet from next to Neil. “But I have trouble believing that is a real thing.”

Charlie released an extraordinarily deep exhale, their breath forming a large puff of white extract in the wintry atmosphere.

“Now, why would I lie about THAT, Todd?” From the first glance at the Dalton teenager’s default annoyed expression and tone, one could assume that they had strewn along ribs and tall tales before, but this was not one of them.

“They’re just confused,” Knox Overstreet abruptly defended his friends from where he stood around the middle of the group’s gathering spot outside of Welton University’s common room. “Is all.” Like a switch had flicked, Neil and Todd each nodded in unison. Then, as Charlie threw a hand across their own face in a moment of gathering their thoughts, there was a beat of pure anxious silence.

“Here is a more basic explanation,” they narrowed their eyes towards the neutral spots in the group’s space, an expression which they would only place on their face when the clan would particularly test their patience. “THIS pitch pipe is for vocal practice - more specifically, vocal unison. I believe it belongs to one of those scary senior chicks, so my plan is-”

Before Charlie could think to finish their thought, Knox sharply tackled the issue.

“Blackmail, you’re going to blackmail someone.”

Almost in a perfected melody, Todd and Neil snickered as the latter half of the duo leaned his weight against the right shoulder of the former, pushing his shoes into the snow and slanting his body partially.

“Out of ALL people,” Charlie mumbled to themself as Knox, Neil and Todd continued to pass grins around their small clump. “I chose THEM to be my best friends.”

“I mean, if this is some kinda issue with Chris and those other singing girls,” Knox proposed. “I could always discuss it with them like we’re all proper adults. Rather than, y’know, risking expulsion.”

Once again, Charlie took a beat to be alone with their thoughts and spent those brief seconds in their on mind to sigh heavily. Out of the three other young adults in the squad, Knox was able to scan and analyze Charlie as easily as a grade-schooler reading a haiku. In spite of the short stints of time it took for the Overstreet boy to break down his delinquent-type friend, they remained inseparable as their personalities contrasted each other so sharply, fitting together like the row and corner pieces of a puzzle.

“You guys are no fun,” Charlie breathed out, not letting up on the poisonously-vibrated glance they were so obviously passing towards Knox. However, on the receiving end of it, Knox’s hardened glare had dissolved into a sickeningly sweet grin - his signature expression.

“Hey, I’m not ALWAYS as uptight as my bestie!” Todd defensively exclaimed, earning him a sharp nudge to the ribs from Neil as they fought off their own giggles, and two scoffs from Charlie and Knox each, as if they were silently saying “PLEASE! Y’all are practically married!”, without even moving their lips.

“Well then, Anderson,” Charlie’s most memorable variation on their “classic smirk” appeared on the bottom half of their face once again, signifying to the three boys gathered around them that something chaotically entertaining was being lorded over their heads like bait. “Do I have a treat for you!”

━━━

It’s four thirty-three in the morning, on the dot, when “upperclassmen guardian” Chris Noel and her girlfriend, Ginny Danburry, are awoken by the brash vibrations of a phone call. Ginny could swear that she was shaking in place by the striking bass lines of Tame Impala’s “The Less I Know The Better.”

“Don’t worry,” Chris insisted, releasing a bellowing yawn as she snatched up her phone from the bed-neighboring nightstand of their senior condominium’s bedroom. “I’ve got it, Gin.”

“Um...Yello?” the Noel woman instinctively muttered into her aged iPhone.  
“Hey, Chris,” the male voice on the other end had a certain annoyance underlying his tone. “It’s Stick, from the student-run campus security council. We gotta code red in the west quadrant freshman library, and one of the suspects involved claims he knows you? Knox Overstreet?”

Tightening her stubborn grip onto the cellular device, Chris had to fight her incessant urge to grit her teeth together as she aggressively rolled her eyes.  
“Is it those science boys...uhh Meat and Bits?” Ginny halfheartedly mumbled.

“Nah, and it’s Meeks and Pitts! I told you this the last time!” Chris cracked, to which her girlfriend giggled. “No, this time it’s Charlie Dalton and their idiot gang.”

“Oh, god.” Ginny breathed out, pursing her lips together as Chris removed herself from the bed to pull her snow boots and trench coat on. 

“This’ll probably take me no less than two or three hours, tops,” Chris proposed her words to Ginny in an explanatory tone. “You can either sleep this one out, or you can join me. Given the fact that it’s Charlie and Knox involved in this whole catastrophe, I would assume that it is pretty-yyy entertaining.”

The Noel woman’s extracurricular position in the school had allowed her and Ginny to have firsthand perspectives on very interesting experiences over what was possibly roughly two and a half months, many of which involved Charlie Dalton, Todd Anderson, Neil Perry and Knox Overstreet’s increasingly ridiculous hijinks. The numerous examples included when the clan insisted on a dodgeball game in the journalism wing of the school after Welton’s most presentable writer, Elton Wheeler, slept with Charlie and never called him back, as well as the occasion in which Todd and Knox engaged in a “prank war” during finals week in order to prove to their two other best friends how fun they truly were, which somehow, of course, eventually culminated in someone getting shot out of a cannon during the homecoming football game. However, no amount of extended glimpses into their schemes could possibly prepare the duo for what was ahead of them that night.


End file.
